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Cover theme - they all have Dick Grayson on them?

Also, I read in the JLI letters page about that Booster/Beetle miniseries being in development, so I went looking for it online (I read JLI in 2005 or so), but I couldn't find anything. It doesn't exist, right? Does anyone know why not?

Cover Theme Game: I can think of two similarities among the three covers:

1) All three of them feature Dick Grayson, each in a different costume (Nightwing, Robin, "adult" Earth-2 Robin).

2) All three of them feature a character who died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths: Tula, Dove, and the Earth-2 Robin.

The Cover Game: Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Shrinking Violet and Brainiac Five, huh? Wow, that's a toughie. The earliest one I could find, amazingly enough, was Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #257, from 1979! Can anyone find an earlier one?

Totz agree on the BG characters rising above. Emma Frost made it, and made it big! She's probably one of my favorite X-Men characters, because she grooves so well in the books as a point of contention. Her scenes in Civil War? GOLDEN.

Well played. I'd play your cover game, but DC is like speaking Khmer to me: i.e., DEAD.

Who is it? Um, Frank Drake? I thought he had a BFG in Nightstalkers but can't recall the name, and I had to go to five and back again to figure it out.

Only thing I can think of for the cover game (aside from the obvious prevalence of Dick Grayson) is that they all feature characters who've died and come back to life (Jericho and Donna Troy on the first, Donna again on the second, and Hourman on the third). Yeah, I'm probably wrong, but it's all I've got.

Also, is Aqualad's costume miscolored on that first one, or did he really run around in blue briefs with matching gloves and boots?

As for the Five Year Later Legion, I wouldn't want to see a reboot of the Legion that picked up from volume 3 and ignored (although that sure seems to be what Meltzer and Johns did with the Lightning Saga). It might not have been everyone's favorite, but it is pretty well loved by a lot of fans. It was a pretty bold era that tried a lot of new and controversial stuff, and it deserves to be remembered.

Completely no idea on the character.

M Bloom: I'm sure DC hasn't been absolutely consistent about it over the years, but it looks like Aqualad's costume was colored "correctly" in the Tales of the Teen Titans cover above, dating back at least to the team's first appearance. Here's an alternate cover from the original Teen Titans run.

Aqualad isn't miscolored, his shirt has just ripped away.

I don't have any answers, I'm just floored by the fact that the Monday feature got posted before 5am on Tuesday. That has to be some kind of new record!

Since the “Five Years Later” Legion has already been retconned TWICE, why not just restart the title from where Levitz/Giffen’s last run ended?

In order to achieve what end?

Legion of Super-Heroes #280
Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #15
Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #26
Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #31
Who's Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes #5
Who's Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes #6
The Official Legion of Super-Heroes Index #1
The Official Legion of Super-Heroes Index #5
Legion of Super-Heroes Secret Files & Origins #2

And unless you want to squabble over code-names:
Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #80
Legionnaires #14
Titans/Legion: Universe Ablaze #1
The Legion #33
The Legion/Teen Titans Special

Adventures in the DCU #10
Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. #10

I'm sure I'm missing some but there you go.

If the Cover Theme question hasn't been answered correctly, here's my guess: the English pound figure is shown.

Oh, and Proty behind the camera is very cute.

I caught on to the Cover Theme thing being that each cover features a character that died during the first Crisis, but I'm stumped on the character question. Someone mentioned Frank Drake, and that got me thinking of Hannibal King, but I have no idea if he's related to any Marvel villains.

Have a good day.
John Cage

I totally appreciate the enthusiasm, Garth! But part of the fun is letting other people get a chance, too! That's why I write "Only one cover per commenter!" in the rules.

They did, indeed, all feature people who died in the original Crisis!

Dick being on all of the covers is a bit too obvious to be a theme.

Garth: I think you missed the "Remember, only one cover per commenter!" part of the Cover Theme Game's instructions.

As for the cover game, they all feature characters that have taken over for their mentrors

The first has Donna Troy who became Wonder Woman (for a time)

the second has Kid Flash (Wally West) who become the Flash,

And the third has Robin taking over as Batman after Bruce Waynes death.

As for the Five Year Later Legion, I wouldn’t want to see a reboot of the Legion that picked up from volume 3 and ignored (although that sure seems to be what Meltzer and Johns did with the Lightning Saga). It might not have been everyone’s favorite, but it is pretty well loved by a lot of fans. It was a pretty bold era that tried a lot of new and controversial stuff, and it deserves to be remembered.

That's the point, though, Matt. So far, it is NOT being remembered. It has already been "erased" TWICE. So if it already is going to be ignored, why not just bring back the originals rather than keep doing revamps?

I don’t have any answers, I’m just floored by the fact that the Monday feature got posted before 5am on Tuesday. That has to be some kind of new record!

Not the most appropriate of comments for a snark-free corner!

In order to achieve what end?

The goal of doing a Legion of Superheroes book featuring superheroes, which seemed to be the goal of both the first and the second revamps.

If you make the Five Years Later Legion a "possible" future, then you can go back and revisit the characters and do whatever you want to do with them, while still keeping the history of the characters intact.

Extra challenging cover game this week -- find one that Garth missed (Classic rookie mistake, Garth. I did it once myself).

Legion Archives Vol. 2. http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=63407&zoom=4

"And the third has Robin taking over as Batman after Bruce Waynes death."

Actually, he's still Robin. Earth-2's Dick Grayson never became Batman, even after Bruce died (which was years after that comic was published).

I think his thinking, Matt, is that Earth-2 Dick "took over" for Batman, just not AS Batman.

But yeah, I think it is a bit of a reach for a theme. Clever thinking, though!!

Well, Brian, one wonders why they didn't use your strategy for the Legion in the first place. As soon as they saw that Five Years Later wasn't successful, they could have simply moved Five Years Earlier.

I have more to say about the way DC is dealing with the Legion right now... But that gets me close to violating the Snark-Free Zone.

I think the main reason for retconning the original Legion is that no one post-Crisis was able to solve "the Superboy problem". Certainly the Pocket Universe solution wasn't very satisfying.

I've been pretty happy with both retcons. I enjoyed them more than all but the very earliest issues of "Five Years Later". I think the Waid/Kitson run has been the best Legion run since the "Reflecto Saga". (Yeah, yeah, I know; but I never really liked the Levitz/Giffen Legion.)

Yeah, but now they HAVE solved it, Michael, so why avoid it?

Waid's Legion has been good, agreed. But would it really have been any worse if Waid was writing the original Legion?

Not the most appropriate of comments for a snark-free corner!

Ha! That's not snark, it's genuine surprise. Happy surprise, too.

Snark would be trying to figure out on what remote far-western Pacific island the CSBG servers are hosted. One which brushes up ever so closely to the international dateline...

In order to achieve what end?

The goal of doing a Legion of Superheroes book featuring superheroes, which seemed to be the goal of both the first and the second revamps.

If you make the Five Years Later Legion a “possible” future, then you can go back and revisit the characters and do whatever you want to do with them, while still keeping the history of the characters intact.

Well, that seems to be *almost* what Geoff Johns is doing. And it would have been a fine solution back around the time of Zero Hour.

But if all you want is a Legion book about superheroes, you can do that with the current Legion. And, in fact, that's what Waid and Bedard and Shooter are doing with the current Legion. So why change anything at all? Every time you reboot or deboot the title, you alienate more people, and it's time for DC to stop doing that.

Who Is It? Frank Drake of the Nightstalkers, who is related to Dracula and named his Exorcist Gun "Linda" (after Linda Blair).

Cool Comics Things: What about Peter David's X-Factor? He said he was offered the book and was excited to write the original five X-Men, but then was told he's getting a new team of c-listers. Look at them now.

Totally a slip there, Tomer. PAD's X-Factor was, indeed, one of the books I was going to originally mention.

Um... so who IS the answer to Who Is It? The best guess so far has been Frank Drake, but I don't think it's him because one of the clues was that the character didn't have any powers, and being a vampire, i'd say that that qualifies as having powers.

And I'm stumped for answers myself. Please enlighten us?
-r-

Who Is It? Frank Drake of the Nightstalkers, who is related to Dracula and named his Exorcist Gun “Linda” (after Linda Blair).

Correct!! Chuck T mentioned it, too, but I figured I'd wait for someone to specifically mention the gun part.

Richard, Frank was not a vampire.

Well, that seems to be *almost* what Geoff Johns is doing. And it would have been a fine solution back around the time of Zero Hour.

But if all you want is a Legion book about superheroes, you can do that with the current Legion. And, in fact, that’s what Waid and Bedard and Shooter are doing with the current Legion. So why change anything at all? Every time you reboot or deboot the title, you alienate more people, and it’s time for DC to stop doing that.

Oh yeah, obviously they're NOT gonna do it.

My challenge was to explain exactly why they DIDN'T just do it that way, rather than reboot again for Waid.

My question back to you is:

How the hell is it the book that is set in the future, that needs no ties to the past, the book that has the most continuity problems of them all?

My challenge was to explain exactly why they DIDN’T just do it that way, rather than reboot again for Waid.

Oh, okay. In that case I think it's because Mark Waid had a few bright ideas that were incompatible with the original Legion. First, his characterization of the individual Legionnaires was quite a tricky and subtle thing, and while it was good stuff it was also very definitely not how the original-version Legionnaires were characterized. Second, he wanted to use his teenage-revolution premise to explain how there could sensibly be a Legion of Super-Heroes in the first place, which you can't apply to the original Legion because we know their origins perfectly well, and Waid's idea wasn't it.

This is also the reason, I think, why Waid didn't just stick with the reboot Legion. There was nothing about that version of the Legion that necessitated getting rid of them; they just didn't fit with what Waid wanted to do.

How the hell is it the book that is set in the future, that needs no ties to the past, the book that has the most continuity problems of them all?

The Legion doesn't actually have that many continuity problems now, and the ones they do have are quite manageable. The big continuity problems of the past have for the most part been swept away by reboots. But the reputation lingers.

"Richard, Frank was not a vampire."

You're right, sorry. In my mind, I was thinking of Hannibal King, for some reason.
-r-